Ask HN: No free accounts vs. collecting email addresses

Hi HN,

a recent discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1613852 pointed to the opinion that if your niche is small, offering free accounts isn't viable.

My counter-idea is that a mailing list approach seems to be often accepted as valuable. To collect emails, a good approach is to offer free accounts (10% of visitors on http://www.bitesizeirishgaelic.com/ created a free account).

Comes back to the question: for a small niche, would you not have free accounts and try to get newsletter signups, or to offer free limited accounts and try to upsell?